The electrical connection of one or more solar cells is conventionally provided by means of tabbing ribbons, which may be soldered onto so-called bus bars of the one or more solar cells. The entire electrical current generated by the solar cell is conducted through the tabbing ribbons.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,158,618 discloses bent contact wires for contacting a solar cell.
The cooling of tabbing ribbons after their soldering on a surface of a solar cell may result in substantial length differences and thus to substantial tensions within the system due to the substantial differences of the thermal expansion coefficients between the material of the tabbing ribbons and the material of the solar cell.
In order to address this issue, conventional tabbing ribbons may be made as particularly soft copper ribbons. However, soft copper ribbons are expensive and are only available from a small number of manufacturers in the desired quality. For light capturing tabbing ribbons can be very precisely patterned in their length direction. The light collection using these patterned tabbing ribbons requires specific bonding technologies, since the patterned tabbing ribbons cannot be soldered (the patterned trenches would be filled with the solder material) or the soldered areas have to be specifically adjusted to cell and module design. Furthermore, the patterned tabbing ribbons are also expensive due to its manufacturing technique and applied reflective layers made from expensive metals like silver.